Propaganda's rap/song is still
making the rounds, as well as waves these days with heavyweights like
Joel Beeke and Thabiti Anyabwile weighing in either on it or Jonathan
Edwards's defense of a fellow slave holding minister. Props considers
the Puritans to be hypocrites on slavery and is critical of the modern
reformed love for them. Yet the problem with propaganda is just that . .
. it's propaganda.
This Just In
But what else is new? If the essence of propaganda or a half truth is that it contains
enough of the truth to convince somebody that it is the whole truth,
then good enough buddy, let's go for it. So, lemme see, before we found out that The some Puritans
puritans approved of slavery, if not owned slaves, we learned the same
things regarding the Puritans and Ye Burning of Ye Olde Witches. Or
Calvin executing Servetus. With his bare hands no less. (I think the
Big P's reference to 'slave ship chaplains' had something maybe to do
with John Newton, who was a captain, not a chaplain, that eventually
repudiated the slave trade.) The point being in all of this, is that
slavery was endemic to the times, just like witch hunting and the civil
execution of heretics.
The
corresponding and salient distinction lost in all the noise is that
while Christians engaged in what are now reprobated activities - and
properly so - Puritanism/Christianity is also pretty much what got rid
of them. Which somehow got left out of the song, due to poetic license,
no doubt. Or is that the license of propaganda?
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